Commentary

San Diego commentary

I am saddened beyond belief by what I see happening in Europe. The massacres in Paris at the Charlie Hebdo magazine and a Jewish market stirred worldwide outrage, but those events are just the tip of the iceberg. In the preceding months, anti-Semitic violence took the lives of children at a Jewish school in Toulouse and visitors at a Jewish museum in Brussels. Jewish cemeteries and temples were vandalized in France, Poland, Greece and Norway, and attacks on Jews in England soared. In Hungary and Ukraine, there were calls for expulsion of Jews. Threats to the Jewish communities of Europe are at their highest point since World War II. Not only Jews are under siege. Right-wing, anti-immigrant groups such as France’s National Front and Germany’s PEGIDA are attacking Muslims, Roma and other ethnic minorities. But the common feature of all these movements is their anti-Semitism. This is a huge turnaround from the recent past. I grew up in Austria and Germany in the years following the Second World War. My mother was a Holocaust survivor from Slovakia who hid for ...

The fact that Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s task force charged with the stadium issue will not hold public meetings is troubling. Then-Mayor Susan Golding’s work on Petco was transparent, with public boards taking public testimony on both the need for a new stadium (the Padres were required to open their books to prove it) and the best location, which also compared downtown and Qualcomm. This public method proved successful in obtaining support and a 60 percent ...

The hawks were swooning. Ashton Carter, President Obama’s nominee to be the next defense secretary, gave the Senate Armed Services Committee every indication Wednesday that he would be a hard-liner at the Pentagon and a strong counterweight to administration doves — and conservatives on the panel were besotted. “We all look forward to having you as our partner,” purred Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz. “I look forward to supporting your confirmation,” cooed Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss. ...

Imagine going to spend a day at the beach with friends or family, looking to recharge your batteries at some of California’s most treasured destinations. But before you hit the sand, you encounter razor wire. Or a locked gate. Or an oddly placed boulder. Or steps leading into what appears to be a private shower. Or a bunch of “no parking” and “no trespassing” signs. Until recently, too many California beachgoers ran into those obstacles ...

More than 13,000 people in our county were arrested for drunken driving in 2012. That’s 1,115 arrests each month, or 37 per day. The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) says that’s more than for any other kind of offense. More arrests than for all property offenses combined (10,084) — including felony burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, misdemeanor petty theft and burglary. These numbers represent real consequences. Alcohol-involved crashes claimed 85 lives and injured 1,592 ...

A drunken driver killed my daughter. As a result of someone’s choice to drive impaired, I am my grandson’s mother and grandmother. In 2013, 867 people were killed on California roadways by drunken drivers. And while California has come a long way since 1982, when 2,261 people were killed by this 100 percent preventable crime, more must be done to make sure no family faces the devastating results of drunken driving. California has been a ...

It has become the Rand Paul pattern: A few weeks paddling vigorously in the mainstream, followed by a lapse into authenticity, followed by transparent damage control, followed by churlishness toward anyone in the media who notices. All the signs of a man trying to get comfortable in someone else’s skin. The latest example is vaccination. “I have heard of many tragic cases,” said Dr. Paul, “of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound ...

Zero is the answer I hear too often in the risk-loving world of the county pension fund. How many California pensions have outsourced chief investment officers? Allow one manager to control 100 percent of the money with 50 percent placed into his product line? Refuse peer comparisons? Pay steep investment fees with no ties to performance and lackluster returns? How many San Diego money managers have we hired? Zero. I am optimistic that San Diego ...

After naming his stadium task force Friday, Mayor Kevin Faulconer and task force member Jim Steeg met with the U-T Editorial Board. Here is an edited transcript of the meeting. MAYOR KEVIN FAULCONER: I feel strongly about getting this done. I think the danger of the L.A. situation has never been more real. If it was easy it would have been done 10 years ago. But at the same time it was important for this ...

Saudi Arabia, which often confounds outsiders with its slow and opaque governance, has moved surprisingly quickly under King Salman, its new monarch, to streamline government and purge officials who were seen as underperformers. The architect of the government shakeup has been Mohammed bin Salman, the king’s aggressive, Western-oriented, 34-year-old son, who has taken the positions of defense minister and chief of the royal court. He is said to have planned the succession moves carefully in ...

The kids are all right. Their slightly older siblings, not so much. For years you’ve probably been reading about aimless, idle millennials hunkering down in their parents’ basements, filling their days with video games, Instagram and deep, longing gazes upon their shelf of participation trophies. Members of the Boomerang Generation simply haven’t been sufficiently motivated — or well-parented? — to get a damn job, spouse and apartment of their own already. One need only watch ...

The measles outbreak at California’s Disneyland — which has spread like pixie dust — along with several other smaller flare-ups, has health officials warning of worse to come. Preventable infectious disease is making its return to the developed world — this time by invitation. The scientific consensus on measles is effectively unanimous: (1) It is not trivial. Children with measles can get seriously ill, and there is chance of complications such as middle ear infections, ...

We are constantly learning new stuff about the housing bubble — and some of the new stuff contradicts the old. This is obviously important, because the housing bubble led to the 2008-09 financial crisis and Great Recession. What we don’t understand may one day come back to bite us. There’s a standard and widely shared explanation of what caused the bubble. The villains were greed, dishonesty and (at times) criminality, the story goes. Wall Street, ...

Beer, Benjamin Franklin supposedly said but almost certainly didn’t, is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. Without cannonballing into deep theological waters, perhaps Deflategate proves the same thing. This scrumptious NFL pratfall — think of someone insufferably self-important stepping on a banana peel; hello, Donald Trump — has come to lighten the mood of America’s annual Wretched Excess Season. It consists of the days — this year, 12 of them ...

Allegations of police misconduct and racial profiling have been made throughout the country, including San Diego. The use of body cameras by local law enforcement has increased in recent months and a report on San Diego Police Department policies is expected soon. Here, a police representative and a pastor and ACLU board member share their views on body cameras and police issues. Also see: Police body cameras strengthen enforcement, trust I love living in San ...

Allegations of police misconduct and racial profiling have been made throughout the country, including San Diego. The use of body cameras by local law enforcement has increased in recent months and a report on San Diego Police Department policies is expected soon. Here, a police representative and a pastor and ACLU board member share their views on body cameras and police issues. Also see: Community seeks police accountability, justice Earlier this year, in response to ...

The U-T Editorial Board met recently with San Diego City Council President Sherri Lightner to discuss issues facing the city. Here is an edited transcript of the interview. Q: The One Paseo project is in your district. It’s a pretty controversial project. Have you developed a view on it yet? A: No. I have met with parties on both sides and I’ve made clear that I am very supportive of the community in all efforts ...

Former state Republican Party chair Ron Nehring rightly states that “San Diego voters have a right to know who is trying to influence our local elections.” (Commentary, U-T San Diego, Jan. 29). But his prescription for accomplishing that — allowing unlimited political contributions to be funneled through political parties directly to local candidates — does not accomplish this objective. The San Diego City Council recognized this fact 19 months ago when it adopted caps on ...

Amid the ritual expressions of regret and the pledges of “never again” on Tuesday’s 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a bitter irony was noted: Anti-Semitism has returned to Europe. With a vengeance. It has become routine. If the kosher-grocery massacre in Paris hadn’t happened in conjunction with Charlie Hebdo, how much worldwide notice would it have received? As little as did the murder of a rabbi and three children at a Jewish school ...

U.S. Supreme Court justices are not supposed to say anything interesting outside of the court, but in 2010 Justice Stephen Breyer was asked in a rare TV appearance if he thought a Florida pastor had a First Amendment right to burn a Quran. First, Breyer cited the late Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’ old line about not having the right to cry fire in a crowded theater. Then, he asked some interesting questions: What does that ...

I confess to being surprised by the surprise over the discovery Monday of a drone at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Happily, this particular offender was nothing worse than a hobbyist’s copter gone awry. But the presence of drones at the White House should not come as news to anybody who has ever heard a Joe Biden speech or a press briefing by Josh Earnest. Drones large and small are a fixture at this White House. Consider ...

Back in the day, as the expression goes, students could take career-related courses in high school, graduate and get a decent job right away. Many fret that vocational courses have disappeared from our high schools in favor of college prep for all students. The reality is that career and technical education in San Diego County is on the cusp of a rebirth, one that will create unprecedented opportunities for students and a vibrant workforce to ...

What might seem like a minor appellate decision involving the San Diego region’s long-range transportation plan rests on a questionable legal holding that threatens to throw environmental reviews all over California into confusion. The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), which lost a 2-1 Fourth District Court of Appeal decision in November, has decided to seek California Supreme Court review of the ruling to clarify the law, and so that it does not become statewide ...

San Diego voters have a right to know who is trying to influence our local elections. Yet the county Board of Supervisors is advancing a new set of rules that will mean more dark money and less transparency in our local politics. On Monday the board voted 4-1 to move forward with new limits. Only Supervisor Bill Horn opposed this latest gimmick. Our local political parties are broad-based, democratically governed and transparent. In fact, political ...

What went wrong for the U.S.-backed government in Yemen and what are the consequences for counterterrorism operations there against al-Qaeda’s most dangerous affiliate? Both questions have disturbing answers. President Obama touted Yemen just last September as a country where the U.S. “successfully” was “taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines.” Some administration officials feared Obama’s boast would haunt him, and sure enough, just over a week later, Shiite rebels ...

DAVOS, Switzerland  Saudi watchers have been talking about the transition from King Abdullah for a decade, but now that the moment has arrived, its consequences are as hard to predict as ever. The death of King Abdullah begins a period of generational change in the oil kingdom that may last for several years. Crown Prince Salman, the new king, is elderly and infirm, and the next in line, Prince Muqrin, is at 69 also ...

Any Republican event convened by Rep. Steven King — he of “calves the size of cantaloupes” fame — could easily have degenerated into a festival of immigrant bashing. It is to the credit of the serious GOP presidential prospects in attendance that the Iowa Freedom Summit generally was not. Yes, Donald Trump emerged from his stretch clown car to say that “half of them are criminals.” And King declared that protesting Dream Act supporters were ...

Republicans seem to have finally figured out the Spanish translation for “Democrats’ Communications Department.” It’s pronounced: “Univision.” The Republican National Committee recently announced the television networks that will broadcast and moderate a series of debates between GOP candidates in the 2016 election. The nation’s largest Spanish-language network was left off the list. Some people were shocked, others were outraged. I was neither. MSNBC, which is unabashedly liberal, also didn’t make the cut. There could be ...